San Antonio’s finally getting a new — but smaller — federal courthouse

The John H. Wood, Jr. Federal Courthouse is being replaced, but the project is losing square footage and a judicial training center.

The John H. Wood, Jr. Federal Courthouse is being replaced, but the project is losing square footage and a judicial training center.

Photo: JERRY LARA /San Antonio Express-News

Photo: JERRY LARA /San Antonio Express-News

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The John H. Wood, Jr. Federal Courthouse is being replaced, but the project is losing square footage and a judicial training center.

The John H. Wood, Jr. Federal Courthouse is being replaced, but the project is losing square footage and a judicial training center.

Photo: JERRY LARA /San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio’s finally getting a new — but smaller — federal courthouse

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San Antonio’s finally getting a new federal courthouse — albeit one much smaller than originally planned.

The General Service Administration announced Wednesday that construction will start next spring on a $117.5 million, 230,536-square-foot U.S. Courthouse at Nueva and Santa Rosa.

That’s almost 25 percent smaller than the 305,000-square-foot facility GSA originally approved in 2008.

Austin-based White Construction Co., the original construction manager, determined that the bigger courthouse would cost close to $180 million to build — or about $60 million more than what was budgeted.

U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, who has been a point person on the project for 15 years, said he “kept trying to press people for more money” to cover the $180 million construction cost. GSA, though, stuck to the original $120 million that was appropriated by Congress, he said.

So San Antonio’s Munoz & Co. and Lake | Flato redesigned the facility to fit the budget, Rodriguez said. “That’s how we went from 305,000 square feet to 230,000 square feet.

“The architects have worked under immense constraints,” Rodriguez said. “They’ve done an admirable job of bringing us down on square footage to meet this budget that was imposed on us.

“The original design was elegant,” the judge added, but the redesign was able to keep a lot of the elements. “We still have a building … that we’re going to be proud of, that will contribute to the skyline of San Antonio and will contribute to the western edge of our downtown area.”

GSA said Wednesday that Alabama-based Brasfield & Gorrie has been awarded a design-build contract for the new courthouse.

The John H. Wood Jr. U.S. Courthouse, the current San Antonio federal courthouse at 655 E. César Chávez Blvd., is a former theater built for HemisFair ’68, the 1968 world’s fair.

It has been plagued with problems, including high levels of lead in the drinking water, foundation issues, flea infestations and faulty heating and air-conditioning systems.

A series of stories about the aging courthouse in the San Antonio Express-News in 2015 led to efforts by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar to secure the $120 million for a new building.

The new facility will house the U.S. district courts for the Western District of Texas, the appeals court, the magistrate courts, the U.S. attorney’s office and the federal public defender’s office, among others.

“The new state-of-the-art facility will meet the security, accessibility and operational needs of the courts,” Bobby Babcock, GSA’s regional administrator, said in the agency’s statement.

The current courthouse and an adjacent judicial training center are being swapped with the city for the 6.5 acres that the new courthouse will be built on. The San Antonio Police Department’s headquarters once stood on the site.

The training center, where new magistrate judges are sent for computer training, will not be part of the new courthouse because of the smaller design, Rodriguez said. It has not been decided where the training will occur after the new courthouse opens.